September 11

On 9/11/2001 I was living in Houston, on a semester off from Mizzou, and training for the Houston marathon, which is held every January. So that morning I headed to lush Memorial Park to do a workout with my training buddies at five in the morning, since that’s how early you have to run in Houston because otherwise you might die of heatstroke.

We were finished with our speed drills that morning by before seven. So from there I drove to the 24 Fitness gym on San Felipe and Ross where I would often go stretch, cool down or lift weights. I picked a recumbent bike in the first of two rows in front of TV screens, right next to Dr. Alan Katz, who was also my OB/GYN after meeting at the gym and shooting the shit every once in awhile. (I figure, hey we always chat on the bikes, you might as well make sure my girl parts are healthy.)

Sometime during this chatty bike ride we saw on the screens the plane hit the first tower. It was completely unclear at that time what was going on, we suspected they were filming a movie. It wasn’t until I got home and took a shower and saw the second plane hit that I realized we were under some sort of terrorist attack. It was terrifying, considering we’d really spent the rest of the summer concerned about a spate of shark attacks near American beaches.

I called my mom, who was at work at the Taiwanese consulate, who said I should probably just stay home from college classes that day. I did, and when she got home from work we went shopping, because she was like, “We should spend all our money in case we’re not around much longer.” When we got back into the car after walking around the mall like zombies, while we were sitting in the parking lot, the radio was playing the U.S. Congress singing “God Bless America” together on the steps of the Capitol. We sat there and cried.